Today, Royal Mail has submitted its response to Ofcom's call for input into the Universal Service.

[Hyrrokkin]

Ofcom & RM are corrupt as f*ck

The only people who benefit are RM shareholders
Thousands will lose their jobs make no mistake
Public get an even more shitty service
Scumbags the lot of them

[qwerty2]

Silence from the union as usual

[bowie]

Relax enjoy the job,start time finish time

[theargyspy]

Silence from the union as usual

They spent over an hour talking about it this afternoon, hardly silence

https://www.youtube.com/live/jKP1HAIjjD ... zIinIuRU7n

[enskied]

"We estimate this proposal, if fully and swiftly implemented, could save Royal Mail up to £300 million a year"o great the shareholders are took care of.

I’d like to see their abacus calculations on this. How have they arrived at that number? They pluck numbers out of the air and are never ever pressed to break the calculation down.

There is no abacus, they think that they can force the Governments hand. They believe that they are unstoppable, that is what Darren Jones told them after they lied under oath and left unpunished.

He said it is not for Government to tell a business how it should be run.

It's bloody audacious really... Almost blackmail.

[Barnacle]

"We estimate this proposal, if fully and swiftly implemented, could save Royal Mail up to £300 million a year"o great the shareholders are took care of.

I’d like to see their abacus calculations on this. How have they arrived at that number? They pluck numbers out of the air and are never ever pressed to break the calculation down.

There is no abacus, they think that they can force the Governments hand. They believe that they are unstoppable, that is what Darren Jones told them after they lied under oath and left unpunished.

He said it is not for Government to tell a business how it should be run.

It's bloody audacious really... Almost blackmail.

The grim truth.

[Ozzvaldo]

You will be delivering a backlog of mail contstantly. i fail to see benefits, and as noted, not a chance they will be making deliveries smaller

We're already doing it. Last Saturday was the first time in 3 weeks that I was on a van share with a partner and with only that days mail in front of us. On one of the days during that span, I was doing a van share delivery on my own and a couple of the loops had 5 days mail on them. Did the Tracked (as directed by the boss) as well as those loops and the other 90% of mail stayed in to roll over to the following day. They gave me a partner the following day, but there was 3 days mail on the 90% that hadn't gone the previous day, so some of it stayed in again. And so on. Not uncommon where I work.

[SpacePhoenix]

It's got the potential for a lot more manual going out to DOs. Sometimes as it us batches can be 18-20 boxes at times. If all the DSA ends up going to DTS then the batches will become too big to run in one hit. There'll be two options, run each batch twice which would mean later dispatch times on top of the times being put back as it is) and therefore even later starts in DOs or we send the excess as manual

[postslippete]

Royal Mail want to have their cake and eat it themselves.


Dave Ward has agreed to a 5 day USO which would give many of us Saturdays off anyway but what RM are proposing could lead to thousands of job losses/hours being cut. It is already happening in our depot now with duties deliberately not being covered, posties walking in to 2 days+ worth of mail and still being told to prioritise the parcels.

When Royal Mail speak of smaller walking routes what they really mean is that you will be delivering post from an oversized, unmanageable route and delivering the letters from that frame. The issue with this is when the managers then expect you to take most of the work on that frame and you suggest only taking 2 or 3 loops because of the parcels that you have to deliver. Imho it's really not going to make our lives any easier and all done to put make more money for the company.

[Barnacle]

It’s already being completely misreported on the news: they’re giving the impression that mail will only be delivered every other day rather than it being 2nd class only that would be every other day.

This is half of the problem. The messaging is garbled and then no one understands what the issues are

[qwerty2]

It’s already being completely misreported on the news: they’re giving the impression that mail will only be delivered every other day rather than it being 2nd class only that would be every other day.

This is half of the problem. The messaging is garbled and then no one understands what the issues are

The media and public think we're still the PO you cant get through to the idiots

[Mr Rush]

"We estimate this proposal, if fully and swiftly implemented, could save Royal Mail up to £300 million a year"

If we are to take 'losing £1m a day' at face value, then we'd only be breaking even after generously redefining a year to 300 days. Is that how the company went from 350 years old to 500 in the space of fifteen years?

[dazzler123]

You will be delivering a backlog of mail contstantly. i fail to see benefits, and as noted, not a chance they will be making deliveries smaller

We're already doing it. Last Saturday was the first time in 3 weeks that I was on a van share with a partner and with only that days mail in front of us. On one of the days during that span, I was doing a van share delivery on my own and a couple of the loops had 5 days mail on them. Did the Tracked (as directed by the boss) as well as those loops and the other 90% of mail stayed in to roll over to the following day. They gave me a partner the following day, but there was 3 days mail on the 90% that hadn't gone the previous day, so some of it stayed in again. And so on. Not uncommon where I work.

yes weve been flipping paired frames now for around 6 months. My customers already get their mail 3 times a week, and thats the best it can be

[POSTMAN]

Today, Royal Mail has submitted its response to Ofcom’s call for input into the Universal Service.

The Universal Service is the legal requirement for Royal Mail to deliver to all 32 million UK addresses six days a week. But with letter volumes declining from 20 billion down to just seven billion, it is now unsustainable and requires urgent reform to meet the changing needs of our customers.

Many other countries have already successfully modernised their Universal Service requirements – in the UK ours hasn’t changed for 20 years despite major changes to how people communicate.

If we want to save the Universal Service, we have to change the Universal Service.

What is our proposal?
We have developed our proposal after careful analysis and looking at a range of options for reform. We listened to your feedback, and had thousands of discussions with customers, businesses and stakeholders, including both our trade unions.

Our proposal is designed to protect what matters most to customers, with no changes to:

• The one-price-goes-anywhere service to all parts of the United Kingdom
  First Class letters delivered daily, six days a week (Monday to Saturday) to recognise the importance of next day and Saturday deliveries, especially for the NHS, publishers and senders of greeting cards
  The option of First Class and Second Class letters, giving people a choice of price and speed
  Parcels delivered up to seven days a week as currently
  Collections six days a week.

The proposal includes limited changes to deliver a more efficient and more financially sustainable Universal Service:

• All non-First Class letter deliveries, including Second Class, would be delivered every other weekday
  The delivery speed of standard bulk business mail (used by large mail shippers for bulk mailings such as bills and statements) would be aligned to Second Class, so they arrive within three weekdays instead of two currently.
  The introduction of new, additional reliability targets for First Class and Second Class services, alongside revised, realistic speed targets, to give customers further confidence
  Tracking added to Universal Service parcels to reflect customer demand.
  We estimate this proposal, if fully and swiftly implemented, could save Royal Mail up to £300 million a year.

What does this mean for our posties?
The changes we want are focused on making our network more efficient, improving how we deliver the mail and setting ourselves up to manage future letter decline and parcel growth.

Some of the benefits for our posties include:

• Opportunities for more Saturdays off: As all non-First Class letters would only be delivered every other weekday (Monday to Friday), there would be fewer routes overall on a Saturday. This will open up opportunities for colleagues to take more Saturdays off, depending on attendance patterns.
  Smaller walking routes, with more addresses visited: Walking routes would reduce in distance, whilst our posties would be delivering letters to around seven out of 10 addresses compared to around four out of 10 today. This will mean less wasted walking and a more efficient network.
  More choice of duties: Over time, the number of walking routes would reduce while the number of van-based parcel roles would increase. Core delivery duties would become either:
  A traditional walking delivery role* delivering letters (all types e.g First Class, Second Class, access and retail bulk mail) and small parcels, or
  A van-based role delivering First Class letters and parcels
  Greater job security: The proposals are designed to make our business more financially sustainable, protecting tens of thousands of jobs and the best terms and conditions in the industry.

We expect there to be no compulsory redundancies and fewer than 1,000 voluntary redundancies. Any reduction in roles would be managed through natural turnover (not replacing people when they leave) wherever possible.

What happens next?
It is important to bear in mind that, at this stage, this proposal is our response to Ofcom’s call for input and not a firm plan. Ofcom will consider the views of a range of stakeholders before coming to any decision.

The good news is, the proposal we have put forward can be achieved with regulatory change, so Ofcom could make the changes required without needing Government to pass any laws.

Ofcom has said it will provide an update in ‘the summer’. We have serious concerns that the urgency of the situation is not properly recognised by Ofcom and are calling for them to act swiftly to introduce reforms by April 2025 at the latest given no need for legislative change.

We estimate that it would take around 18-24 months to fully implement the changes, from the point at which changes to regulation are brought into force.

Visit myroyalmail.com/universalservice for employee resources including FAQs, office handouts and a Worktime Listening and Learning brief.

Plus, use the form on the site to have your say on the proposal, or ask a question.

*walking delivery roles include all types of ‘walking role’ e.g. park and loop, HCT

[Denman17]

What a time to be a postman smaller routes a chance for more weekends off throw in the inflation busting 2% pay rise you have me.